East Bay Lacrosse Notebook: 4/8

Sure, the Foothill High boys lacrosse team was 7-1 entering the April 1 showdown with De La Salle, but as the defending North Coast Section and East Bay Athletic League champs, the Spartans had to be considered the team to beat until someone took them down.
Well, the Falcons obliged.
With a 10-7 win over De La Salle, the Falcons have established themselves as the top team in both the league and in the NCS, with their only loss coming to St. Ignatius on March 12.
“The EBAL has lot of very strong teams this year and it’s going to be a dogfight to the end,” Foothill coach Bob McManus said. “It’s way too earlier to tell who is going to come out on top. We think we will continue to be successful if we can stay healthy, continue to share the ball with multiple scorers on offense, and win the game between the restraining lines.”
The Falcons are a very well-rounded team, with a solid attack, an improved long stick defense, great faceoff and wing guys and a veteran keeper.
Junior Ben Krebs is not only good in goal, but good at directing the defense, while defenseman Jason Koth, Shane O’Niell and Ross Porter are a formidable trio.
McManus called O’Niell the best groundball and breakaway man the Falcons program has ever had.
Senior middie Mike Lambrecht wins a lot of faceoffs, and there isn’t much drop off with the second faceoff guy, freshman Mike Barbier.
The entire starting attack and all of them, Gabe Garcia, Broc Shall and Scott Wheaton, have at least two years of varsity experience.
“One thing that has allowed us to keep pace and eventually break away from strong teams like Monte Vista and De La Salle is our faceoff and wing men and our play between the restraining lines,” McManus said. “On offense we are fortunate to have nine returning players out of the ten we rotate in on offense and for the first time in a long time we have solid returners at all positions.”
There is still plenty of season to go, but with their depth, experience and unselfish play, the Falcons look like the cream of the crop in 2010.
“Our offense takes pride in moving the ball quickly, driving hard and then sharing the ball,” McManus said. “We have many strong offensive players and it’s hard for a defense to key on one or two of them, because others will then step up. It’s not uncommon for us to have 8 to 10 different players getting on the board in a game.”

Monte Vista staying motivated

After claiming the school’s first EBAL and NCS titles, the Monte Vista girls lacrosse team is staying motivated to keep improving.
Maybe being ranked as the top team in California by westsidelax.com is enough motivation?
“I don’t even know if they follow that stuff because I tell them to stay off the blogs and try to keep them from looking at the rankings,” Monte Vista coach Dearborn David said. “I don’t think they feel any of that pressure because we don’t look at ourselves as the team to beat.”
Perhaps that serves as enough motivation. That or the fact that this team could be better than last year’s team that wound up going 19-4 a year ago.
“There are times when they show some things to make me say this is the best team Monte Vista’s had,” David said.
The Mustangs are tall, big, physical, aggressive and driven and are led by two prolific offensive players in senior Lauren Goerz and sophomore Paige Southmade as well as two tenacious senior defenders in Leah Trembly-Adams and Jenna Alberts.
Monte Vista has only allowed more than 10 goals once this year and David said lockdown defense will be the key to the Mustangs chance at repeating.